Forward Air Corp (Delaware) (FWRD) 2011 Q3 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Thank you for joining Forward Air's third quarter 2011 earnings release conference call. Before we begin, I'd like to point out that both the press release and this call are accessible on the Investor Relations section of Forward Air's web site at www.forwardair.com. With us this morning are Chairman, President and CEO, Bruce Campbell, and Senior Vice President and CFO, Rodney Bell.

  • By now you should have received the press release announcing third quarter 2011 results, which were furnished on the SEC on form 8-K and on the wire yesterday after market close. Please be aware this conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Included statements, among others, regarding the Company's expected future financial performance.

  • For this purpose any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical facts, may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, without limiting the foregoing words such as believes, anticipates, plans, expects, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. You are hereby cautioned that these statements may be affected by the important factors, among others, set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in the press release issued yesterday and consequently actual operations and results may differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements.

  • The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Bruce Campbell, Chairman, President and CEO.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Thank you, operator and good morning. Thanks to all of you for joining our third quarter earnings conference call. I will brief in my remarks this morning, but did want to touch on a few highlights of the quarter. First of all, we are pleased with our growth during the quarter.

  • Both in our Legacy airport to airport product line, and also our Complete product line, which continues to show double digit growth. Considering all of the negativity we hear every day, including the slowdown in the Hong Kong statistics, our team was able to produce solid growth during the period. We are especially grateful for their efforts and the efforts of our independent contractors.

  • As further update, thus far into the fourth quarter, we continue to show good growth and see no reason for that not to continue. If you will recall during our second quarter earnings call, we shared with you that we thought the normal seasonality of the industry, and in particular our airport to airport segment, had returned for the second half of the year and that is exactly what we experienced. From a seasonally slower July to a very robust September, exactly the way you expect volumes to flow in a normal third quarter. For those of you who don't remember normal flows, we would suggest to you that normal is good.

  • Our Solutions group, in spite of both revenue wins and operational improvements, simply could not overcome the slower than normal business from their major customers during the quarter. In this case, slower than normal is not good. We do expect that to change in the fourth quarter, and we look forward to positive contributions from this segment of our business. And now Rodney Bell, our Chief Financial Officer.

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Thanks, Bruce. The 13.7% growth in our airport-to-airport network resulted from a 5.6% increase in average weekly tonnage. 7.6% increase in yield.

  • Average weekly tonnage for the quarter progressed as follows. July 1.8%, August 5.6%, and September 9.5% against each comparable month in 2010. The yield improvement consists of 1.6% from line haul pricing, 3.6% benefit from net fuel surcharges, along with a 2.4% positive impact from Forward Air Complete, which had revenue growth in the quarter of [32%].

  • We anticipate volume growths for the fourth quarter to be in the upper single digits, and overall yield to be a bit better than Q3. Logistics revenues were $18.6 million, or up 10.1% compared to Q3 2010. After a slowing of growth in Q2, we were pleased to see growth back in double digits for Logistics and anticipate the same for Q4. And our Forward Air Solutions segment, revenues increased only $769,000 or 4.2% compared to the prior-year quarter.

  • New business wins discussed in Q2 on our Q2 earnings call experienced late start-updates. We will, however, have the benefit of that in Q4. Jumping to expenses, a couple of items from the prior-year quarter we want to point out. In Q3 2010, we had approximately $500,000 downward adjustment to insurance claims resulting from the reduction of reserves associated with prior-year premium audits.

  • Also in the quarter, prior-year quarter, we had a $600,000 pickup that was classified under other operating expenses related to the termination of a capital lease. In the current year quarter, the only out of the ordinary adjustment was the income taxes, which included approximately $600,000 benefit from the reinstatement of an alternative energy use credit, related to propane usage. We expect fourth quarter 2011 tax rate to be approximately 39.5%.

  • Net CapEx for the quarter was $4.5 million, and $19.3 million year-to-date. And we anticipate full-year 2011 to be $21 million of CapEx. Late in Q3, we repurchased approximately 904,000 shares of our Company stock and average price of $26.88.

  • In October, we repurchased 69,000 shares, and have 815,000 shares remaining on our current authorization to repurchase. The repurchase had 2/10 of a cent impact on Q3 and will provide a full penny benefit in Q4. We ended the quarter with $50 million outstanding on our line of credit, or gone down on our line of credit and $39.2 million available on the line.

  • Lastly, we anticipate the third quarter (sic - see Press Release) revenue to be in the range of 10% to 14% over the comparable 2010 period with income for diluted share to be between $0.47 and $0.51 compared to $0.41 last year. That concludes our comments. Now back to the operator for questions.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions). Our first question from the line of Edward Wolfe with Wolfe Trahan, and your line is open.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • Good morning, Bruce, Rodney

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Good morning.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • Can you talk a little bit about what's going on with yields, net of fuel. It felt like yields weren't going up the way they thought they might be with the new GRI. Can you talk about how that looks going forward and what you expect for rates going forward next year at this point, if you know.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • I'm not sure what your expectations were, Ed. We thought with our GRI that we put in in June of this year, that what we saw in the third quarter was exactly what we expected to see. On the spot pricing market, that tends to be pretty stable at the moment. We haven't seen anything crazy there.

  • As we look forward to next year, you know, we'll actually be making that assessment in the next few weeks, what we think we can do. And, you know, a lot will obviously depend on the marketplace. And how much demand there is and hopefully a lack of supply. We'll be able to raise rates again.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • So 1.9% in year-over-year, that's a fair placement holder going forward at this point? Or does that start to ramp up as you go through more of the customers?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We should see that ramp up. I don't think hugely. If you recall, our increase this past year was not as great as the one was before.

  • The one in the previous year to that was the first one we'd had in a number of years. So that was a little bit larger. One of the goals we have is always keep our customer in business. So we're careful with how much we raise prices.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • And I know you have the ability to grow your margins without a lot of pricing. You don't always get yields every year. At this point, knowing what you did with the big increases in 2010 and smaller ones in 2011, does 2012 feel like you're going to ask for one at this point? Is it too early to know.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • It's really too early, we look at what kind of capacity issues we're facing. So far we haven't faced any. Or minimal ones I should say. We look at cost increases that we can't control. A trailer today costs almost $27,000 versus $20,000 two years ago. So those are the type of things that we weigh into the decision in terms of how much we'll go after.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • Can you talk about the divergence in the quarter between the shipments and the weight per shipment. Is that tied to the economy do you think or why is weight per shipment coming down?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • I think it is. It is tied to the economy. We also distort that number occasionally with what we call distributions, where we will do a huge distribution per for say a movie coming out. All their stand-up characters, as an example. And those are typically very small shipments. And they will distort that number a little bit. So I wouldn't read too much into it.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • So you're saying end of quarter just reported, there was some of that distortion?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Yes.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • Okay. With Back shutting down their ground operations, have you seen any customers directly and what do you expect to see from that?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • I would preface that Ed by saying it's going to be hard to clearly identify that, we have in fact seen some business come over that we could clearly identify. I think the bigger play there will be that business that is difficult to determine that actually came out of Backs.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • Rodney gave the tonnage for June, July, August. Could you give September and October to date if you have it?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Sorry. I thought I gave September as well. September was 9.5% and October so far is pretty comparable to September.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • Okay. So there has been a bump-up a little bit it feels like. Some of that's probably Back stealing?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Could be. Some of it could be, you know, the markets may be a little bit better than we thought. And some of it could be other competitive issues, market share games.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • Okay. And then when you think about fuel impact in the quarter, I know it's tricky because for the owner/drivers you pay some through to them. It's been a modest benefit in recent quarters. Was it similar to this quarter?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Maybe a bit better.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • A bit more to the positive for you?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Yes. Pardon me.

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • Okay. I Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

  • Operator

  • Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Does that conclude your questions?

  • Edward Wolfe - Analyst

  • It does.

  • Operator

  • Thank you. We go next to Todd Fowler with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

  • Todd Fowler - Analyst

  • Great. Thank you. Good morning. Bruce, maybe I had a little question to start.

  • Can you talk about, I think that there are some misconceptions in the marketplace between what's happening with air freight, particularly the numbers coming out of Asia and your business. Can you talk about the difference between, you know, what what you're seeing in your volumes and what you think people are focusing on with some of the international air freight statistics.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • You know, Todd, we've done this for 21 years. For 21 years we've looked for a single data point that would help us determine what the market is going to be for the next few months. We've never found that. It's amazing other people have.

  • We just never been able to find that data point. We look at a number of data points. And if you take all of them together and try to place them, I have to say this right. Try to understand how they affect us, some affect us more than others.

  • That's basically the bottom line. We can kind of get close to what we think is an overall good predictor number. But that's very difficult. It's just very difficult in our business to find exact data points that help us.

  • Todd Fowler - Analyst

  • Well, maybe let me ask it this way. Is it fair to say then that some of the international air freight trends are not one of the good predictors for your business?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • You know, they're one of the predictors. But they are minimal in their impact. If you look at, we do basically let's say 9% airline business, give or take a percentage. You know, if a certain data point within that industry is off 5%, it has minimal impact on us.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Yeah. And Todd, so much of our freight these days never had a previous or subsequent air movement. It's truly a domestic, expedited ground movement as opposed to deferred air freight.

  • Todd Fowler - Analyst

  • Right. That makes sense. That's how I think about you guys. That's helpful. Just a couple of questions on the network.

  • It looks like the airport to airport net revenue margins continue to be strong. So I'm assuming that's, you know, continued favorable balance, you know, of capacity between your owner/operators and third parties. As you see the improvement or tonnage pickup, is there some risk that you have to source more capacity out of your network, or can you talk about where your balance is between your owner/operators and other uses or other sources of capacity.

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • That is a typical month for us when we have to go out and buy capacity on the outside. That's driven by two things. One is simply a lack of our owner/operators to handle it or, two, out of balance situation that we get into on occasion. So we will use outside power for that.

  • Our owner/operator fleet has continued to grow. We're right at 900 in the airport to airport segment. So we have been able to keep most of the business within our owner/operator fleet. That which goes outside is normally because it's a good decision to move it outside.

  • Todd Fowler - Analyst

  • So from a capacity standpoint, you're in good position that you could handle, you know, if you saw that high single digit volume increase in the fourth quarter, that a lot of that would stand in the network and wouldn't be too much pressure on the cost side?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We think that's a true statement.

  • Todd Fowler - Analyst

  • Okay. Thanks. And then, you know, just physically with the network. Are you feeling any pinch points with where tonnage is. I know we're not quite back to where we were maybe in late 2007, early 2008. We have moved up. How does the network feel from a doors and from a capacity standpoint on the structure?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We're still in really good shape.

  • Todd Fowler - Analyst

  • Okay. And then just lastly, you know, can you talk a little bit about the thought and buying back stock here in the quarter and then the expectations going forward with what you still have remaining underneath the authorization, of where the balance sheet is.

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Well, I would take you back to uses of capital and in particular cash. You know, we'd prefer to do acquisitions when we can't do reasonable acquisitions, and we see a dip in our stock, we're going to grab it. You know, as we go forward, those circumstances could change. But today, you kind of have to tie acquisitions to stock buyback.

  • We think we're a better Company than make an acquisition. We'd rather buy us. So that's how we look at it.

  • Todd Fowler - Analyst

  • Got it. That makes sense. Congratulations. And we'll talk to you soon.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • We have a question from the line of Scott Weber with Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

  • Scott Weber - Analyst

  • Yeah. Hi, good morning guys. It's Scott Weber in for Ken.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Hey, Scott.

  • Scott Weber - Analyst

  • Hey. Last quarter you mentioned some spottiness in volumes. Are you still seeing that at all and is it prevalent in any particular vertical or has acceleration that you mentioned really covered any of that spottiness?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We see relatively no spottiness.

  • Scott Weber - Analyst

  • Okay. And I guess just looking at your purchase transportation. That took a step up again sequentially, as was expected with volumes coming on. Do you expect that to begin to normalize here? And I guess could you talk at all about how your effort is going to bring on owner/operators.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • You know, we're going into the fourth quarter. We're going into our highest volume time of the year. What I call normal. And that category is going to get some pressure on.

  • Now we're hopeful that we can offset that pressure by, as you stated, additional owner/operators and then also better load averages and better flow through our network. That's easy to say and very difficult for our team to execute. But I think they can do it. However, during this quarter, that will get some pressure on it. The P.T. category.

  • Scott Weber - Analyst

  • Okay. Terrific. That's all I had. Thanks a lot, guys.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • We have a question from the line of David Ross with Stifel Nicolaus .

  • David Ross - Analyst

  • Question, good morning, gentlemen.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Good morning.

  • David Ross - Analyst

  • In the four-year solution segment, I guess on the last call you said that margins should be slightly profitable in the third quarter. And that you just said that customers weren't as active I guess. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, how much less active they were than you guys would have expected. Was it strictly top-line issue, not giving you enough density to get the margins.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Yeah, that's exactly what it was. If you took our top three customers, they were down 20%. That's awfully hard to overcome.

  • David Ross - Analyst

  • Was it down 20% year-over-year or sequentially?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Yeah. Year-over-year.

  • David Ross - Analyst

  • And then earlier you talked about pricing in the fourth quarter, you know, being better, yield being better in the fourth quarter than the third quarter. Was that just better sequentially or better growth rates year-over-year than we saw in the third quarter?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • It's really better sequentially.

  • David Ross - Analyst

  • Okay. And then the alternative energy tax credit. You know, looks like it was less than $100,000 a quarter. Is that going to be good going forward or is that just kind of some catch-up reinstatement for a short-term period?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • It was reinstated through 2011 is our understanding. And it may not be renewed. So right now we're not counting on it.

  • David Ross - Analyst

  • Okay. And then lastly, could you just talk a bit about the United Cargo business win that you had a press release out about a couple weeks ago. Where that impacts the business, mostly in the airport-to-airport or some of the truck brokerage segments?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • If you look at the business in total, David, we had already had a really good agreement with United. So we were handing their business. What this really covered was the continental business, so this is primarily out of Houston and Newark and other locations. But those are the two big ones.

  • Depending on their flows, and it does change day-to-day, it will impact the airport-to-airport network. And then the next day it could flip and be at full truckload. So it's strictly a matter of their flows and their density. But it is a really, really nice piece of business.

  • David Ross - Analyst

  • Thank you very much.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Thanks.

  • Operator

  • We have a question from the line of Sterling Adlakha with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Please go ahead.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • Hey, good good morning, gentlemen. This is Sterling in for Alex today.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Good morning.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • Bruce, I wanted to ask you about pool start to off with. We were a little surprised to see another loss this quarter in operating income. Is that what you were expecting and if not, what were the factors that contributed to the loss there?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We really thought that we could at least break it even as we stated in the second quarter call and perhaps make a little bit of profit. What we didn't expect as I said earlier, was that the major customers, who are good customers and we didn't lose any business. They simply didn't have the business. And when they get hit, because of the nature of their delivery network, you know, by let's say 20% down, it's very difficult. They're going to go to the same stores. They're going to run the same miles.

  • They are going to have the same driver's expenses and the revenue is going to be off 20%. That's difficult to overcome. Now the good news is it looks like going into the first fourth quarter, that's returned to normal, if you will. And normal is a good thing. And hopefully we'll carry that through the fourth quarter and see a nice profit from that.

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Sterling, the other thing, if I could, last quarter we were anticipating new business start-ups, the benefit of that in Q3 what, in fact, happened came on late Q3 and Q4. So we were left with start-up costs in the quarter without a whole lot of top line to go with that. So compared to, you know, a quarter ago, what we were anticipating just didn't happen with new business.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • Gotcha. I apologize for the top three customer comment. I got distracted while you were mentioning that. Back on Pool and you did talk about your uses of capital there and preference for acquisitions and maybe buying back stock at times.

  • But with Pool, it seems like to really get that steady quarter-to-quarter profitability through the year, you have to build some more density, dedicate more capital. Have you thought about alternatives strategic options for Pool, is now the right time to kind of consider different options and maybe rethink your uses of capital and dedicating more to Pool?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • No. Again we're opportunistic in that area. And we look at and have looked at a number of opportunities. We just have to find the right one.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • What about Pool as a segment within Forward Air and maybe spinning that off or doing something different with Pool and focusing more on different elements of the business or acquisitions?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Well, you're suggesting a number of different alternatives, all of which we look at on a number of occasions. So it would be difficult for me to sit here today and say, yeah, we're going to do this. We're going to do that. But I can assure you we explore those options all the time.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • And what are those options being potentially spinning off Pool?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • I would not say that today sitting here. I mean, you know, if you put it on a blackboard and say, hey, what are the options available to you, certainly that's one of them. But I don't want to have any discussion that says we're looking at spinning off. Because we're not. If you take this model and we've said this for three years. You know, and again, you know, we couldn't have bought into this business at a worse time.

  • But that's our mistake and we're doing the best we can to rectify it. But when they have adequate revenue flowing through this model, it's more profitable than the airport to airport. And we're just simply not going to walk away, because we still think, at least now that we've been through hopefully the bad times and they're turning into better times, maybe not great times. You know, we're not willing to walk away from it. And we've made substantial investments in it. So you can push as hard as you want to push here, we're not interested in spinning off.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • Okay. I'll try just one more follow-up on that. Because that was very helpful to hear how you think about that business. The capital investment you've made in Pool already is a large part of that is a sunk cost. As you look forward to putting more capital to that business, you feel that that's a high return on capital investment and better than your other alternatives for capital use?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • You know, this is an endless discussion as I think you know. You can make all kinds of arguments about best uses of capital. At some point we're hopeful that, in fact, it has been a good investment. You know, we could be dead wrong on that. But at this point, in the process, we're not willing to make any changes there.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • Okay. Thanks, Bruce.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Next time I want Alex and not you.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • I'll take that as a compliment, even though it probably wasn't intended as one. Just wanted to ask about fourth quarter guidance. Let me start by asking slightly different question. Because you mentioned October volume being similar.

  • I think you meant similar on a year-over-year growth basis to October. That doesn't seem implied, by the revenue guidance. What is your expectation built into your guidance for volume for the quarter and is there some reason why it may tail off later in the quarter on a year-over-year basis?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Certainly I think you've known us long enough to know we're typically pretty conservative on guidance. And that's probably the disconnect between what you're seeing and what your model is probably generating.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • Okay. Should we or not be sort of expecting 9% or 9.5% volume growth in airport to airport for the fourth quarter?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Internally we're modeling 7% or 8%.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • For the full quarter. Okay. And is there something else even at sort of a 7%, 8% volume, is there something else in the operating expenses that we should be factoring? Is there something that maybe we're missing there? Is it higher P.T. maybe?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • The underlying fear of the unknown, Sterling.

  • Sterling Adlakha - Analyst

  • Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate the time.

  • Operator

  • And we go next to the line of Matt Brooklier with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay. Thanks. Good morning. So your top three customers at Pool were down 20% was the comment. Yet you guys had nice growth on a year-over-year basis. So obviously had a good offsetting factor there, maybe provide a little bit more color in terms of what accounts are growing.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Most of that growth came, Matt, from a customer who provides us both final amount of delivery opportunities. They also provide us truckload opportunities. Which does not affect the cost model. That's why you can see some growth there. But slippage on the operating side.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay. And you made a comment earlier that your top three customers had started to maybe move a little bit more volume. And, you know, are those three growing at this point in fourth quarter.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • They're back to what I would call more normal. And you know on the retail especially side, Matt, I'm real hesitant to predict that it's going to be great or bad or in between. We have had discussions with them. They think they're going to have, two of them are going to have a good quarter. One of them is probably going to have a mediocre quarter.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay. And just a shift from, you know, being down 20, to two of them having a good quarter and probably, you know, growing, is that a function in terms of inventory restocking or maybe you could provide a little bit of color as to why they expect to feel better in the fourth quarter?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • It's primarily as Rodney said, it's seasonality, Matt.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • On top of that he pointed out with Sterling that we did have a number of wins during the quarter, during the third quarter. And we've had a few going on this quarter too. Which is very unusual. Typically that doesn't happen. So we're hopeful that the late wins and I should say better, the late implementation of wins in the third quarter will have a bigger impact on us in the fourth quarter.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • What verticals are these new wins in? Is it especially retail or outside of that

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Probably 75% specialty and and then 25% outside.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay. And we're hearing more conversation specifically from the truckload carriers that driver turnover has picked up. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how you feel about your capacity internally, ability to recruit company drivers and then also on the owner/operator side. You know, how comfortable are you with finding the needed capacity at the price you want to pay given the fact that it feels like driver turnover is kind of accelerating here.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • As far as our recruiting of owner/operators and the ability to find capacity with them, again we've been very successful in that area. I attribute that to really good effort by our team. And the fact that as things get, you know, drivers get a little bit worried about certain companies, we get more and more opportunities, because we have a good reputation within the owner/operator field.

  • As far as outside capacity, this far into the year, we really haven't had any big issues. You know, we get stretched every now and then in certain locations geographically. But so far we have not felt any consistent, constant pressure there.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay. And maybe final question. Talk to if you guys pushed through a wage increase for Company drivers in the quarter, if not are you planning on an increase? If so are you able to talk to the potential magnitude of that increase.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We did a, not to make it overly complicated. We did an increase back in July.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Basically that increase to the owner/operator was if you purchase a newer truck, because a newer truck, you know as well as I, costs considerably more, you buy that truck, we will up your rate per mile.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • So it was you give and we give. And I think, depending on the run or the situation, it's basically $0.03.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Have to give you the order of magnitude. We're projecting that to be something just over a penny on an annualized basis in terms of the cost of that. So it's not a huge deal.

  • Matt Brooklier - Analyst

  • Okay. All right. Thanks, guys.

  • Operator

  • We have a question from the line of Michael Fontaine with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

  • Michael Fontaine - Analyst

  • Good morning, guys.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Good morning.

  • Michael Fontaine - Analyst

  • I hate to come back and beat a dead horse. Just wanted to revisit (inaudible) and, you know, you talked a little bit about what your revenue expectations are. But, you know, should we think about the profitability of the same order of magnitude as last year, with the big three customers coming back? Would it be a little bit higher. Because the new business wins, how should we think about that?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Michael, you're asking us to compare what happened to 2010 to the full-year 2011?

  • Michael Fontaine - Analyst

  • More just the fourth quarter.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Yeah. The profitability in the fourth quarter will be at least as good as it was in 2010.

  • Michael Fontaine - Analyst

  • Okay. That's helpful. And then I guess as we move along into next year, I guess with the profitability the same, 8% margin again or a little bit better. You'll be closer to break even for the full year. Should we think about you eking out a small profit in 2012 in (inaudible) or is it still too far away to tell?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • You know, we feel like we'll have a reasonable profit in (inaudible) in 2012.

  • Michael Fontaine - Analyst

  • Okay. Well, that does it for me.

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • And we have a question from the line of David Campbell with Thompson Davis. Please go ahead.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • Yes. I'm very pleased to hear that you're expecting or have begun a seasonal peak in your business. I assume that's what you mean by normal/seasonal trends. I'm glad to see you've got it. Was it helped at all by the import activity on the West Coast in September, being better than it had been earlier in the quarter

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • You know, David that market is probably the most, I don't know how to describe it. It's up and down. You know, one week it's good, the next week it's bad.

  • So, you know, I would hate to say that the West Coast is a whole lot better. But, you know, we did see some signs of life out there. We're hopeful that that continues that the fourth quarter. The balance of the Nation is good.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • Right. So the Continental contract or the business of Continental had minimal impact in September?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • It was started about mid-month, part of it was started mid-month. And then additional phases throughout the balance of the month. So it really had little impact on us in the third quarter.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • Right. And other expenses were down from the first and second quarters at $11 million. (inaudible) Is that a sustainable rate or something special in the third quarter this year?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • It's a sustainable rate, David. There's nothing really special there in terms of out of the ordinary adjustments.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • Okay. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your help.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • And we have a question from the line of Ben Hartford with Robert W. Baird Please go ahead.

  • Ben Hartford - Analyst

  • Thanks. Hey, Bruce and Rodney. I was hoping you guys, well first, Rodney, the October share repurchase. Is that reflected in the Q4 guidance?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • It is.

  • Ben Hartford - Analyst

  • Okay. Bruce, if you could talk a little bit about the core balance in the third quarter and into the fourth quarter. How would you describe the network balance?

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Overall it was fairly normal. I would say a couple of weeks we were stretched in certain areas across the US. Which is a pretty common phenomenon for us. And, you know, we have ways of adjusting to it. So it was a fairly normal quarter.

  • Ben Hartford - Analyst

  • And thinking about pricing in the business and Q4 and into 2012. If we were to stay at these levels with line haul rates up 2% or so, what are the primary sources of cost inflation as you see it and to what extent is 2% adequate to be able to drive incremental leverage, independent of volume. Can you talk a little bit about pricing and some of the cost inflation.

  • Bruce Campbell - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We're okay with the 2%, as we speak today. As I said earlier, we'll review that towards the latter part of the year. From a cost standpoint, we think that covers those noncontrollables, that we have to have no way of recovering the cost. So right now the way we're positioned today, we're good. But that's a constant reevaluation process for us.

  • Ben Hartford - Analyst

  • Okay. And then lastly, Rodney, on the balance sheet. What is the appetite for additional leverage when we think about total capacity now with some buy backs here in recent months and continuing to pursue acquisitions. How should we think about balance sheet capacity in terms of appetite for debt?

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Yeah, I think we said in the past, that we wouldn't have any problem going to debt in the magnitude of two to three terms of EBITDA. So that would be pretty manageable from our perspective. But for the right deal we may go a little higher than that.

  • Ben Hartford - Analyst

  • Okay. Great. Thanks for the time, guys.

  • Rodney Bell - SVP, CFO

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • Thank you. And, ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to thank you for joining us today for Forward Air Corporation's third quarter 2011 earnings conference call. And please remember the webcast will be available on the IR section of Forward Air's web site at www.forwardair.com.